Indeed, Artful, I just found that abc2midi produces the correct dotted rhythms if invoked with the option "-RC"; thanks for the hint. This is not only important for obtaining a MIDI file for further usage (which I never need), but also for the ear control in EasyABC or ABCexplorer. Things are not as easy as claimed, at least not for my laziness. Obviously the authors of abc2midi wanted to serve a particular group of musicians who always "swing" their dotted rhythms, but I think neither the standard nor the above "Stockman" is done justice by that.

To my knowledge, the current ABC standard is at least 2.1, and the good printing software abcm2ps (as included in EasyABC and ABCexplorer) claims to support it (or vice versa?). So does abc2xml.py, by which ABC tunes can be transported to Sibelius and Finale - quite an asset! (I bet pavane will claim to comply to all the latest standards as well, or even better.)